Putting Arpeggios Into Action: Part 1

In a previous lesson, we covered arpeggios from the perspective of playing all available chord tones within a particular position.

In this lesson, we'll practice playing the arpeggios again. This time, we'll play them along with a backing track to ensure we've gotten comfortable with the forms.

Finally, we'll practice along with backing tracks that switch from one chord to another. And therefore from one arpeggio to another.

The Process for Creating Arpeggios

Choose a set of chords. (A-7, D-7, B-7♭5, E7)

Choose a position on the guitar (for example, Position V)

For each chord, spell out all of the notes in it.

Now for each chord, play the arpeggio in position, from lowest available to highest available.

The Chords

Chord

Notes

A-7

A, C, E, G

D-7

D, F, A, C

B-7♭5

B, D, F, A

E7

E, G♯, B, D

The Arpeggios (Vth Position)

A-7 Arpeggio

Note the similarity of the A-7 arpeggio with a pentatonic minor scale.

Amin Backing Track

D-7 Arpeggio

Dmin Backing Track

B-7♭5 Arpeggio

B-7♭5 Backing Track

E7 Arpeggio

Putting it All Together

Once you can play the arpeggios together smoothly, you can hopefully practice switching from one arpeggio to another. Once you get fluent and comfortable with this exercise, you’ll find that as you improvise along with the track, you’ll be able to easily target the notes of the chord in your own solo.

Key Tasks

Name the notes as you practice— understanding the notes is key to arpeggio practice.

Apply this process to the chords of an entirely different chord progression—but stay in the Vth position, at least for now. You should spell the chords and create the arpeggios yourself. That is crucial to understanding them.